These are all Giant-Man Series figures--we got them all this time, including one of the variants so that we could put together the large Giant-Man figure. There's a problem with pre-ordering, by the way, when you have kids--if the expected ship date is July, they're expecting it on July 1st, and they ask about it every single day until they finally arrive. (The Young Avengers set was also a July ship, but no sign of that yet.)
Ant-Man
I assume that this is the Scott Lang Ant-Man. Nice figure apart from the slight hunch the muscles give him (they also give him that unattractive neck-slope thing). Good arm movement. Hip joints are a bit stiff and not as flexible as some others, and the legs won't quite go together (not as bad as with the Human Torch figure, but still annoying) and he can't really sit down. The Ant-Man helmet looks good but is a little difficult to position correctly.
So there are a few issues with his playablity, but he's sturdy and will probably get a fair amount of play (if only because he goes so well with the little Ant-Man that came with Goliath, not to mention the Giant-Man we put together)/
Captain Britain
This figure uses that muscle-bound, thick-necked torso sculpt that gives the character a permanent forward hunch and limits what you can do with him with the arms up. The head has limited movement, and--as is often the case--the rear end gets in the way of kicking the legs out backward, which means that some lunging movements are impossible. Otherwise good mobility, and the joints are neither stiff nor loose.
Captain Britain has one of those complicated costume designs where the pattern moves unless he's standing in a very specific position. It isn't a big problem but it is noticeable, particularly on him. The painted design is good apart from the large white areas which have a blue cast to them. On the whole a nice figure.
Havok
A good figure, only moderately muscular--meaning a good range of arm motion--although he is a bit hunched over. He's flexible and posable. His paint is well done, although of course it's not a particularly busy costume design. Even his silly headgear looks good.
He's got a nasty expression on his face, though, eyes wild and teeth bared; a number of the other figures have this. You'd expect it more on the villains, but often the heroes have it as well. This limits their playability somewhat, because while you can pretend that a moderately serious expression denotes a wide range of emotion, you can't pretend that a look of insane rage denotes anything else.
Kitty Pryde
Kitty is slender and petite, which I think is accurate (although I'm not sure how old she is supposed to be these days). Great face, good hair, costume seems all right although it's hard to tell because the torso joints--and an odd plastic "breastplate" where there's an actual gap under the breast area--chop it up so much. The belt is added on and will likely come off at some point.
She's reasonably movable. The hair severely limits her head movement, but she has good arm and leg movement and the torso is quite flexible.
The cool thing about Kitty, though, as far as the girls are concerned, is that she comes with a little Lockheed dragon, which can sit on her arm. Thus, she is probably the favorite among the kids.
The Sentry
The Sentry uses much of the same body scupt as Captain Britain; since both characters are "strong guys" it looks about right. Because of this he shares some of the same mobility issues, although the head is much better, and the hands are different, smaller and not permanently curved.
The costume design, as one might expect, is very Silver-Age. The belt and cape are attached, and I think it's possible that either might come off with rough play. He looks good, although if I hadn't gotten the set of nine I'd have gone with the variant.
Thor
An excellent figure apart from a certain looseness in the waist. I'm not enough of a Thor fan to know whether this is the original version (I seem to recall his tunic as blue rather than black so this may be a different version) but he looks good. The bulky attached cape limits arm motion, and the long hair limits head movement (not uncommon in many of the female figures as well). On the whole, though, a great figure--even Thor's funky leg-wrapped boots look good!
Warbird
They call her Warbird, but she's wearing Ms. Marvel's costume. Now, she looks good. The hair, the face, the costume (and the costume actually covers her butt, unlike the current version where the legs are cut so high that the sash hangs below them, I'm not sure why they don't just turn it into a thong and be done with it! :P) The sash is nicely done as well. She's fairly tall, about the same height as Ant-Man (though not as tall as Sentry or, of course, Thor), which is accurate for the character. She's probably my favorite of this bunch.
And she's very playable. Good head movement despite the long hair. The leg mobility could be improved, as she can't kick backward, but she has good side movement and can do excellent flying kicks. The arms worry me a bit, they're so jointed and so thin that I'm concerned that they may break more easily than they ought to.
Wolverine, Age of Apocalypse
I'm not an X-Men reader this time around, and definitely never read this specific storyline, so I can't speak to the figure's accuracy. He differs from classic Wolverine not only in costume, but seems to have tattoos on his forehead and has a metal stump in place of his missing left hand (neither of which should be possible given his healing factor, but as I said I haven't read the story). It's flexible and playable, the joints are good althought the waist is just a bit loose, and the paint job is decent. That said, since we already have two Wolverine figures, I don't see this one getting much play.
I will say that Wolverine's claws seem to be one of the more difficult things to create--they're generally quite flexible, which is good in terms of not poking one's eye out with them, but not so good in that they tend to curve and change position.
Wolverine, Age of Apocalypse, Variant
Most of this figure is the same as the non-variant figure, so I won't comment more on that other than to say that it's quite playable. The changes are a different head and a different arm stump (this one has claws attached). The head is scarred, which I gather is accurate for the storyline; I suppose I could research the point, but I'm just not that interested. :)
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